Want a live tutorial on how to hack an Xbox by the guy who actually wrote the book on it?

If so, you should plan to attend what likely will be the nation's first federal jury trial of a defendant accused of jailbreaking Xbox 360s—installing mod chips that allow the console to run pirated or home-brew games and applications.

Celebrity geek Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, the designer of the Chumby and author of the 2003 title Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering, has agreed to testify for a southern California man charged under the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The defendant in the case, 28-year-old Matthew Crippen of Anaheim, allegedly ran a business modding Xbox 360s for between $60 and $80 a pop. He was charged after he performed the silicon surgery for an undercover corporate security investigator with the Entertainment Software Association, then again for an undercover ICE agent. He faces up to three years in prison if convicted of both counts.

The 35-year-old Huang argues that mod-chipping is not a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it unlawful to circumvent technology designed to prevent copyright infringement. He said he hopes to prove that point to jurors via a step-by-step tutorial.